‘Mucky or precious, I’ve still got my life!’ Jade shouted.
‘We’ve still got parents and brothers and sisters to keep on our wages,’ some of the others chimed in.
‘I haven’t put my name down for this. What would I want to go for?’
‘Fine!’ said Yumo angrily. ‘You want to carry on hiding here, cadging off these people? You want to watch the Japs carrying those children off to their doom? You do that! Just who do you think you’re saving yourselves for? Is there anyone who gives a toss whether you live or you die?’ She was beginning to sound like a foul-mouthed countrywoman, every sentence a stream of curses. ‘You think you can hide yourselves away and you’ll be reborn as nice young schoolgirls, just like that? Face it, you were born to be whores, the scum of the earth! But if you do a good deed now, maybe you’ll have better karma in the next life.’
Father Engelmann did not really follow what Yumo was saying. It was not just the words she used, but the meaning behind them. But Fabio understood. He had grown up in the countryside where life for women was harsh. It was common to hear them take any opportunity, including scolding their children, to bemoan the sadness of their lives. But so long as they felt that this was their karma, they would always, in the end, accept any injustice fatalistically. Yumo was talking to the women now in terms which they understood. They quieted down.
Suddenly Fabio could bear it no more. ‘You don’t have to take the schoolgirls’ places,’ he shouted.
Yumo was taken aback. Fabio felt Father Engelmann’s eyes boring into him as he repeated, ‘No one need go.’
‘Talk sense, Fabio!’ said Father Engelmann in English.
‘Keep them all hidden in the cellar. Maybe the Japanese won’t find them,’ said Fabio.
‘But the Japanese already know there are schoolgirls in hiding here –’
‘That was because you admitted it! You’d already decided to sacrifice these women.’ Fabio was so outraged he was scarcely comprehensible and, seeing the older priest was straining to understand, he repeated the accusation. For the first time in his life, he felt Chinese through and through. There was something almost feudal about this xenophobic desire to protect ‘his’ womenfolk from being ill-treated by any foreign man.
‘Fabio Adornato, I’m not discussing this with you.’ Father Engelmann’s quiet voice quelled the younger man.
There was a ring at the doorbell and the candle flame flickered.
‘Get down to the cellar,’ Fabio ordered the women. ‘You’re not going to be dragged off like scapegoats, not while I’m alive to stop it.’
‘We’re not being dragged, we’re volunteering,’ said Yumo looking at Fabio. It was a look Fabio had been waiting for, a look that instantly bewitched him. And now the eyes which gave him that look would depart with her body …
‘I’ll go and talk to their officer and ask for another ten minutes,’ said Father Engelmann.
‘Twenty minutes. It’ll take at least twenty minutes for us to put on their clothes,’ said Yumo.
It was a clever idea. Father Engelmann was taken aback by Yumo’s intelligence and maturity.
‘Do you think you can look convincing?’ he asked.
Hongling spoke up. ‘Don’t worry, Father. We can pass ourselves off as anyone except for ourselves!’
‘Get the girls’ clothes, Fabio, please,’ said Yumo. ‘Not the stuff they wear every day. We want what they wear for special occasions, quickly!’
Fabio sprinted to the workshop. Halfway up the ladder it suddenly struck him that Yumo had called him not ‘Deacon’ or ‘Father’ but ‘Fabio’. And she had made ‘Fabio’ sound like an authentic Chinese name.
The officer agreed to Father Engelmann’s request and his troops waited silently in the chilly night for another twenty minutes. Father Engelmann had explained why they required more time: the choir robes had not been worn for a while. Some needed buttons sewed on, others mending and ironing. The soldiers stood patiently in rows outside the church compound wall, bayonets at the ready. Good things were worth waiting for, and the Japanese were sticklers for ceremony.
Exactly twenty minutes later, the kitchen door opened and out came a group of young girls dressed in wide-sleeved black choir robes. They walked with their heads slightly bent, like girls trying to hide their budding breasts. Each girl carried a hymn book tucked under her arm.
Father Engelmann stood at the gate, making the sign of the cross over each of the women as they passed. It was difficult to tell which of the black-robed women was which. But he recognised Yumo from her height. She brought up the rear of the procession. When she reached him, she smiled shyly and performed a genuflection like a good Catholic schoolgirl.
‘You came here seeking protection,’ said the priest softly.
‘And thank you for taking us in, Father. If you had not, I don’t know what terrible things would have happened to us by now.’
Fabio had moved closer and was staring at Yumo.
‘Women like us can never escape ruin, or from ruining others,’ she added with a sly glance at the two clergymen.
Fabio pulled the heavy door open for the women to pass through. Outside, the torches illuminated a forest of bayonets. The Japanese officer stood to attention, his face in darkness, only the brightness of his eyes and teeth betraying a wolfish delight.
Fabio had never imagined that he would open the door and send these women on their last journey; send this woman, Yumo, on her last journey. Even though Yumo had been born luckless, he had assumed that there was still some shred of hope for her. But not any more. He felt a surge of melancholy. He had first been infected by such feelings as a child when his Chinese adoptive mother took him to operas. She had sown so many seeds of melancholy in his heart. Yes, he thought, seeds grew, and could turn into something quite different.
Beside the burned-out tree, a truck was parked. Two soldiers stood by the tailgate and, as the first ‘schoolgirl’ approached, they each took hold of an arm and hoisted her up the step. It was no use refusing their help. They blocked any attempt to struggle with drawn bayonets.
Father Engelmann stood at the entrance to the compound. He watched as each woman stepped up and disappeared under the tarpaulin covering. He regretted that he had not asked them their real names, the ones their parents had given them. Eventually all the women were in the truck apart from Yumo. He saw the officer reach out to help her up, and he saw Yumo instinctively jerk away, then give the officer a faint smile. It was the genuine smile of a young girl, shy and modest. She could fool anyone with that smile.
The officer mounted his horse and ordered the truck to start.
‘Please wait!’
Father Engelmann ran towards the truck.
The officer on horseback turned to him.
‘I’ll go with my students,’ the priest said.
‘Ii-e!’ the officer replied.
Fabio didn’t need to speak Japanese to understand that this meant ‘no’.
‘I’ll go and make sure they sing properly. It has been ages since they last sang…’ Father Engelmann insisted, trying to climb into the truck.
The officer shouted an order for the truck to pull out. It lurched forward. With a hand clutching the wooden rail of the truck bed and a foot on the rear wheel, the priest was left suspended, his long, black cassock entangling his limbs.
‘Father Engelmann!’ Fabio called out.
The officer yelled something.
Yumo reached out her hand and placed it on Father Engelmann’s.